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Archive for October, 2025

Education and Chat GPT: time for a return to the bad old days?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Happily I retired from the university teaching scene before Chat GPT and his mates came along, because it has apparently made life rather difficult.

Generally the most subtle assessment method, at least in the humanities, is the essay. You set the topic, send the student away, and assess the resulting masterpiece a week later.

People in other necks of the woods have other choices, of course. Mathematicians can be asked to tackle a problem on the spot. Subjects which consist primarily of absorbing a lot of memorable material can be tested with multiple-choice questions, which have the additional advantage that they can be graded by a computer.

The most picturesque assessment method was applied to trainee aircraft engineers. The class assembled at 9 am and each member was presented with a small engine. At 1 pm the examiner returned, by which time the engine had to be dismantled entirely into its component parts. The class then had lunch, then reassembled to reassemble their engines.

At 5 pm the examiner returned and tried to start each engine. If it started first time you had passed, and if not…

But I digress. The problem with setting essays now is that you do not know if the result was partly, or indeed wholly, written by artificial intelligence. This has in turn produced a lot of interest in detection, which is sometimes possible. The person who told me about this problem recalled a case in which the essay included the word “albeit”.

This is not the sort of word which comes up often in sociable chat so the writer was asked what it meant… and could not answer.

Clearly though there is going to be an ongoing arms race here between AI users and programmers, trying to produce ever more convincing forgeries, and teachers and other detectives looking for ways to spot traces of computer composition.

The answer, I fear, is going to be a return to the primitive practices of the past.

When I took my first degree, half a century ago, there was no continuous assessment, multiple choice was regarded as simplistic, and computers were monstrous machines which had to be fed punched cards.

We wrote essays at least once a week and these had to be submitted and discussed, but they were not part of the assessment. There was also a small examination each term intended to reassure your personal academic adviser that you were still alive and working, but this was not part of the assessment either.

After three years of this regime you encountered an ordeal more like the old Chinese civil service exam (in which candidates were locked up for a week and, according to legend, invited to write down everything they knew) than modern gentle testing methods.

Starting on Wednesday we had three-hour exams each morning and afternoon until Sunday, when you had a day off, a relic of the days when universities were mainly intended to train clergymen. The ordeal resumed on Monday and ended at lunchtime on Tuesday, at which point there was an understandable tendency for the survivors to get resoundingly drunk.

The actual examination was quite Spartan. You were allowed (times had changed) to use a Biro. The paper was white and completely blank. People were agitating for lined paper, to help authors whose writing tended to diverge gradually from the horizontal as they got down the page. This came eventually, but too late to help me.

There was a list of about a dozen questions, of which in your three hours you were expected to attempt four. As the marks available were divided equally between your four answers it was an elementary point of exam technique to get to four somehow.

There were no “open books”, bringing in notes of any kind was cheating, and the examiners were not – with rare exceptions – the people who had taught you. We were not asked our opinions of the teachers, but because the examiners were applying consistent standards, the outcomes of individuals and groups could be compared.

This was a stressful system and I would not recommend copying it in all its details. It favoured glib bullshitters and people who could write quickly. It was a great preparation for journalism, which is perhaps not a recommendation.

But as AI tramples its way across the academic landscape it may be time to rediscover the merits of putting the students in a room with paper, pen, questions and a time limit. At least you know who has written what.

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A yacht economy, certainly, but no subsidies for rich men’s toys please

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »

That pitter patter of little feet you heard after the policy address came from a herd of hogs heading for the public money trough, which naturally follows the announcement of a new hub. Consider the government’s newfound enthusiasm for the “yacht economy”.

The policy address had barely finished echoing down the corridors of power before a spokesman for the Boating Industry Association was pushing a list of “supporting facilities” which visiting yachts would require and which, it seemed, he expected the government to provide at the taxpayers’ expense.

According to a report in the Standard the association’s chairman, Lawrence Chow, clearly had a longer list in mind but started with “landing facilities, public restrooms and waste collection stations”.

Over this issue hangs a small technical confusion. The government, and the Standard’s headline writer, referred to “anchorages”. Mr Chow referred to “berths”. These are not the same thing.

An anchorage is a place where a yacht can drop an anchor. It needs a lot of water space round it for this and communication with the shore requires another, smaller, boat … or for the really affluent owner a helicopter. This is not a great boost for tourism. Also you would not wish to be on an anchored yacht in a typhoon.

A berth is a place where the yacht can tie up next to a jetty or pier, and its occupants then merely have to step ashore or, if the yacht is really big, walk down a gangplank. This is obviously much more convenient and places which take the “yacht economy” seriously all have facilities of this kind.

Most of the government actions announced so far consist of removing bureaucratic obstacles. Yachts will, for example, no longer be required to have a reserved berth before they arrive. Skippers will be able to take the exam for local waters remotely. And so on.

We have not seen so much detail about how the proposed “five new anchorages” will be produced, but I take it what what this actually means is five new marinas.

Clearly there will have to be some official contribution in the shape of space: a patch of water on which a marina can be built and a patch of land next to it for the necessary “facilities”. There is no reason why the operator of the marina should not provide everything else at its own expense, or indeed pay a reasonable fee for the land and water. After all users of the marina will be paying. Operating a marina is a commercial enterprise.

If visitors require public restrooms and waste collection stations it will be in the interest of the operator to provide them, and the resulting increase in custom will provide a reward.

There are two reasons why the government should be extremely careful to avoid the appearance that it is subsidising this activity. The first is that it would be undignified, indeed obscene, for a government which cannot afford to provide its elderly citizens with a decent pension to use public money to subsidise millionaires’ recreational activities. Or to put it in words of one syllable, rich men’s toys.

The second reason is that it would contrast rather fiercely with the government’s indifference to the possibility that Hong Kong people who are not millionaires might enjoy boating activities. Walking along the edge of Tolo Harbour is a pleasant experience but it is also frustrating. There is sunshine, there is a gentle breeze, there is a large expanse of more or less clean water but … no boats.

Ma On Shan, Taipo and Shatin are large populous towns on the edge of the harbour and the grand total of boating facilities offered to their inhabitants is … zero. There is a Taipo Boat Club but since the construction of the Tolo Harbour Highway it has been exiled to Tai Mei Tuk, which is miles away.

It would be nice to have a “yacht economy”. Could we not have a “dinghy economy” as well?

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On Mr Trump’s aspirations to nobility, or Nobelity

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Quite the mind-boggling headline of the week announced (wording varied in different places of course) that the government of Norway was bracing itself for some retaliation from the USA if American President Donald Trump was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Well no doubt it would be good if all international statesmen were eager to qualify for the Peace Prize. On the other hand there is a widespread suspicion that Mr Trump’s ambition owes little to a passion for peace and much to resentment of the fact that Barack Obama got one.

Students of the history of international relations will no doubt have noticed already that standards drooped when the professional diplomats were elbowed aside by national leaders, whether elected or hereditary. But this is surely a new low.

I may be biassed. It is true that English culture traditionally sets a high value on modesty and self-deprecation. One may hope for honours but one does not ask. There is a character in one of CP Snow’s novels who is a senior civil servant and thinks he is due for a knighthood. So instead of signing with an initial he starts signing with his full Christian name (John Smith instead of J. Smith) in the hope that his seniors will see fit to put a “Sir” in front of it.

This is regarded as a serious, if amusing, character defect and the knighthood does not materialise.

The press pioneer Alfred Harmsworth had better luck. To the suggestion that he should agitate politely for a peerage he famously replied “When I want a peerage I shall buy one like an honest man.” He did later (without paying) become Lord Northcliffe. When I worked for the Derby Evening Telegraph we still had a rather poor portrait of him in the hall.

The presentation of honours in Hong Kong has never caused much controversy. The colonial ones were not taken very seriously because they were … well … colonial. Their post-handover replacements have not established themselves as a big deal.

I once did a rough study of the arrival of honours in the Legislative Council. It appeared that if you were a loyal supporter of the regime there was a fairly predictable time-line along which, as long as you survived re-election, you would travel from Justice of the Peace through bauhinias of various colours. One DAB member seemed to be stuck on the launch pad, as it were. I suspect he had refused to participate.

I am not aware of any similar study of how life treats those who go “seeking the bubble reputation” through the consultative apparatus.

There were some misgivings a few years ago when some people with qualifications in engineering adopted the pretitle “Ir”, which works like “Dr”. The “I” is because the title originated in French. Lawyers suggested that they should perhaps put in a bid for “Lr” before the librarians grabbed it.

Some people disapprove of this sort of thing. One of the idols of my youth was Charles Carter, who was the first Vice Chancellor of Lancaster University. Mr Carter was a devout Quaker and spurned titles of any kind. He always signed, and described himself, as plain Charles Carter and I only discovered that he was entitled to both Dr and Prof when I got a look at correspondence from polite outsiders.

He did tell me – a point lost on holders of honorary degrees in Hong Kong – that such honours should only be worn in the premises of the university awarding them. So if you have an Hon Doc, whether or not you earned it or “bought one like an honest man”, it should not be on your business card.

Anyway all this suggests that there may be an easy way to propitiate the unpredictable Trump. Countries which wish to bow before the president should look into the possibilities of honorary degrees, orders, knighthoods, perhaps (lucky old England) even a Lordship.

Alternatively, at the risk of punishment, they could refer him to the work of Thomas Gray:

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,

         And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,

Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour.

         The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

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Travel trade illusions: sportfests are good for the economy and travellers want to shop in airports

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 1, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Goodness, a whole page in Monday’s Standard was devoted to Routes World, an international conference held in Hong Kong.

Routes World is an annual get-together for people building and running airports. It is held in a different place each year. Hong Kong was a happy host because links with other airports can help its ambition to become, or remain, an international air transport hub.

This is one of the more plausible of our hub ambitions, which now number about 20. What is the collective noun for a multiplicity of hubs? A hubbub? A hubble bubble? A hubris?

Most of the Routes World proceedings were no doubt routine conversations about things only interesting to people in the industry, or with a morbid fascination for the economics of airports.

It does seem, though, that the travel business suffers from some shared delusions. This is not surprising. Many professions have them. Journalists had a shared delusion for a long time that their consumers were mainly interested in accurate information. Now that the internet is up and running it has become clear that most people find inaccurate information much more interesting.

One of the air people’s shared delusions concerns sports. Consider this offering from Philipe Karat, head of the transport part of the Brazilian Tourist Board. He reportedly said that “Brazil’s experience hosting the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics significantly raised its global profile, attracting more tourists and new airlines…”

This is wildly at variance with the growing consensus among people who study such things that hosting international sports circuses of this kind does not provide an economic boost, the extra income from visitors is grossly overstated, and is off-set by an increase in the number of locals taking holidays abroad to avoid the circus.

As two sports economists put it:


The World Cup coincided with the start of Brazil’s longest recession since the 1930s. That rather undermined claims that it would boost the economy. The impoverished country then had to fork out another $4.6 billion (predictably 50 per cent over budget) to host the Rio Olympics.

Outside the tourism bubble most people now agree that it was a terrible mistake to hold World Cups in Brazil, or in South Africa, since both countries had more important needs than a bit of fun and a temporary influx of foreigners. Brazil, as Kuper and Szymanski put it, “sacrificed a little bit of its future to host the World Cup.”

For another interesting delusion we can turn to the panel discussion on “the transformation of airports into sought-after travel destinations”. This is the idea that people will plan flights so that they can visit airports they particularly fancy.

As one speaker put it, “If passengers can enjoy a comfortable and pleasant shopping experience at Hong Kong airport there would be little incentive to seek transit through … other destinations.”

Someone needs to grab these people firmly by the ear and explain that air passengers are not looking for a “comfortable and pleasant shopping experience.” In fact attempts to turn air travel into a shopping experience are more resented than appreciated.

The preoccupation with lucrative retail outlets leads to difficulty in finding the things which travellers really need, like bags or electrical adapters. And the comfort and pleasure will not compensate for a poor range of goods on offer. Hong Kong airport would be a more attractive destination if it had a decent bookshop.

It is a basic axiom of international air travel that all airports are very much the same. The differences between them pale into insignificance compared with matters like the date and time of the flight, the intended destination, the impact of a mid-journey change, if any, and above all of course the price of the ticket. The flight, we hope, will be comfortable and pleasant. The airport merely has to be efficient.

I have been processed through a wide variety of airports. The only one I would really like to transit through again is Istanbul, which has excellent local shops starring Turkish Delight and paklava with a wide variety of colours and ingredients. But I am not going to choose Turkish Airlines just so I can taste these delicious marvels again.

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